I’m a huge fan of blogging for several reasons. It’s a great outlet for creative expression, establishing your expertise, serving as the foundation of your content marketing and social media strategy, and of course, for taking your SEO to the next level.

Recently I listened to a great webinar from Michelle Shaeffer, “Unlock the Secrets of Successful Business Bloggers.” She shared some of her best tips and strategies for making blogging fun – and profitable – for your business. Good stuff.

I took some notes from the webinar, and I’d LOVE to hear your insight into this. Read the tips I compiled and then leave your best tip in the comments.

Oh, before I get into the tips, I wanted to note how interesting Michelle’s story was. First, she was very candid sharing that her blog was not a success until after a year of putting continual effort towards it. She initially received maybe 1-2 comments on each post and possibly 10 page views a day. Here is what insight she offered that transformed her blog and brought her significant exposure and visibility:

  • You HAVE to get out there and promote your blog – no ifs, ands, or buts
  • Blogging 2-3 times per week brings the best return
  • Don’t be boring
  • Don’t’ be in the witness protection program – you HAVE to share your secrets
  • Build credibility by giving away what you know
  • Successful bloggers aren’t afraid of the “competition”; they leverage others who blog on similar topics
  • Having a voice is more important than having perfect textbook grammar (Note from Creative Concepts: we believe both are equally important!)
  • Shift your perspective to thinking: who will my blog post help?

Some of her marketing and promotion tips she uses for almost every blog:

  • Sync Twitter to your blog using the “Twitter Tools” plugin
  • She has Triberr.com mates who share her link automatically via social media to get the ball rolling
  • The LinkedIn Blog Link plugin imports new posts
  • Schedule 3-4 tweets including #hashtags promoting a post (don’t be afraid to tweet more than once about your blog post)
  • Bookmark your blog on Delicious
  • Notify your email list (but do this judiciously – you don’t want to overwhelm your subscribers)
  • Email blog posts you think are appropriate to certain individuals in your network
  • Stumble the post with Stumbleupon
  • Share your post with some of the LinkedIn groups you belong to (and again, don’t share EVERY post – only the really awesome or appropriate ones)

Your turn – leave a comment below and let me know:

  1. What would you add to this list to take your blog to the next level?
  2. What additional activities do you do to promote your blog posts?

Photo credit to jmoneyyyyyyy

 

Jenny Munn

Writer and Digital Strategist